The following accountable care organizations or value-based care delivery arrangements were covered by Becker's Hospital Review within the past month.
1. Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Fla., signed a clinical integration agreement with payer Florida Blue to manage costs and improve quality outcomes. The agreement will coordinate care between Florida Blue, Memorial Healthcare's hospitals and Memorial Health Network, a subsidiary of Memorial Healthcare that includes 1,073 physicians.
2. Cigna partnered with several providers for collaborative accountable care initiatives, the payer's version of ACOs.
• One agreement is with Arlington-based Texas Health Resources and Texas Health Physicians Group. The CAC initiative, which launched Jan. 1, includes more than 17,000 Cigna health plan members.
• Another is with Adventist Health Network in Illinois, a clinically integrated network of providers that collaborate with the Adventist Midwest Health and its four hospitals in Chicago's suburbs. The partnership will cover more than 5,000 Cigna members.
• Another is with Cookeville, Tenn.-based Cumberland Center for Healthcare Innovation, an Advanced Payment Medicare Shared Savings Program made up of 37 medical practices. The initiative will cover more than 2,900 Cigna members.
• Cigna also inked a CAC agreement with Denver-based Physician Health Partners, a management services organization owned and operated by primary care physicians.
• Two agreements came out of Connecticut: One with PriMed, a multispecialty group based in Shelton with more than 120 providers, and one with The Greenwich Physicians Association, an independent practice with 106 physicians.
• Another came out of New Hampshire — Cigna formed a ACAC with Core Physicians, a multispecialty group based in Exeter.
3. Provider organizations in nine rural communities in Indiana, Michigan and California bonded together as the National Rural ACO and joined the Medicare Shared Savings Program as an ACO. To qualify for the MSSP as an ACO, organizations need to have at least 5,000 Medicare beneficiaries attributed to them. By themselves, none of the NRACO's members could have qualified for the program.
4. Valley Preferred, a provider-owned preferred provider organization aligned with Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pa., formed a new accountable care agreement with Aetna. Valley Preferred contracts with health insurance companies and includes more than 4,200 physicians and 18 hospitals.
5. Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare signed an ACO agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthcare Plan of Georgia.
6. First Coast Health Alliance, a physician hospital organization established by St. Augustine, Fla.-based Flagler Hospital that includes 188 physicians, partnered with Florida Blue for an accountable care program.
7. Partners in Care, an East Brunswick, N.J.-based independent physician association and healthcare management company, launched an ACO with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey Jan 1.
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